- SOUND STRATEGY — MEASUREMENT — BRAND CONSULTING
Music
Shapes
Culture
Brands spend millions on music.
Nobody measures the commercial return.
We do.
OutSound explores the relationship between sound, culture and customer experience.
Because every brand has a visual identity.
Very few have a sound strategy.
We help retail, hospitality and hotel brands use sound more strategically — across physical spaces, digital touchpoints and every moment in between.
Through consumer research, cultural insight and music metadata, we build the methodology and framework that turns a brand's music from background noise into a measurable commercial asset.
We work alongside agencies, architects and creative partners to strengthen the brief.
- WHY
THE RESEARCH IS READY.
Consumer research is clear: background music changes how people feel, how long they stay, what they buy. That's not opinion, it's twenty years of studies. What's been missing is a way to apply it commercially, with numbers you can act on. That gap just closed.
THE CATEGORY IS FORMING.
Brand show up culturally when they have the right cultural partner or booked the right DJ for the right event, the right moment. Then the DJ leaves. What's playing in space every other day often says nothing about the brand. That's not a culture strategy. That's a gap.
THE MEASUREMENT IS THE PROOF.
The metadata behind every track tempo, energy, genre, mood and engagment data actually says something about whether the sound is working or if it’s on-brand or not. The score gives a benchmark to tie it to the numbers you already report on. That's proof, not a guess.
- SERVICE
DIAGNOSE
BRAND SOUND AUDIT
The evidence base for every decision that follows
What is the sound environment currently communicating? Where does it contradict the brand positioning? A scored diagnostic across Brand Alignment, Sound Engagement and Cultural Resonance. The gap between intention and experience — made visible.
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR
The data underneath the statistics
How long are customers staying? Are they engaging or just not leaving? The numbers every provider quotes but never explains.
CULTURAL MAPPING
Where does the brand sit culturally?
What artists, genres and registers carry the brand identity and which ones quietly undermine it?
STRATEGY & DELIVER
SONIC IDENTITY & STRATEGY
The brief that has never been written
A written Brand Sound Strategy as specific as the visual brand guidelines. Tempo. Genre. Cultural register. Artist criteria. Daypart logic. Built from evidence. Owned by the brand.
MUSIC CURATION & MANAGEMENT
Built to brand. not to algorithm
Bespoke playlists curated to the brand strategy and built through meta data that translate brand DNA. Music programming. Monthly updates. Provider managed with full licensing compliance across PPL, PRS and international equivalents. Music that belongs to the brand — not a subscription renewing itself.
CULTURAL PROGRAMMING & DJ DIRECTION
The cultural layer that connects
Artist sourcing, DJ briefing and live music direction for residencies, brand activations and events. The DJ works from a written brief — energy arc, cultural register, brand positioning. Not a vibe. A strategy.
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Sound as considered as everything else in the room
Planning and directing the sound experience across physical and digital brand environments. Working alongside interior designers, F&B consultants and creative studios to ensure the sound is as intentional as everything else in the space.
MEASUREMENT & REPORTING
How do you know if it is working
A scored framework across Brand Alignment, Sound Engagement and Cultural Resonance. Quarterly reporting that shows what the sound is communicating, whether it is consistent across locations, and what it is returning commercially. The question nobody else is asking — answered.
- SELECTED CLIENT AND PROJECT EXPERIENCE
HARRODS × APPLE MUSIC FOR BUSINESS · LONDON
“Like It. Hear It. Take It With You.”
Music Consultant . Curator
Playlist Link Apple Music
Harrods had the visual identity, the spatial design, the product curation. Nobody had asked what the sound was doing or where it was taking the customer after they left the floor. Working directly with Apple to bring Apple Music for Business to market, the question was finally put.
TThe answer became the brand's first-ever music engagement programme. Customers could hear a track in-store, scan a QR code and instantly access a curated Harrods playlist on Apple Music. A single bespoke playlist driving a complete customer journey from physical space to digital touchpoint became the soundtrack to the season, connecting window displays, editorial campaigns and the in-store experience into one continuous sonic journey. For the first time, sound became part of the brand's marketing rather than simply operational background music. More importantly, it gave Harrods valuable insight into who was listening and how customers were engaging beyond the store.
LYNK & CO × KOLLEKT· EUROPEAN ROLLOUT
“How to sound more like a progressive cultural brand than just another car company.“
Music Curator
Playlist Link tbc
Lynk & Co entering European cities. A brand with a clear cultural identity — progressive, community-led, distinctly un-corporate. The brief was to make it sound like itself before it had established itself in the room. Curation that carried the positioning before the positioning had time to land.
GENTING CASINO GROUP X WILLOW · UK ESTATE
“A 24/7 sound that resonates with an discerning demographic with extensive customer dwell time"
Brand advisor, Music Consultant. Curator
Playlist Link tbc
Full music audit and consultancy across the Genting estate. Four distinct sound profiles built across fourteen zones — gaming floor, restaurant, bar, lobby, private dining. Each environment given its own brief. Each transition between spaces considered. The work of understanding what a complex multi-format estate needs to sound like and building a framework that holds consistently across all of it.
BURBERRY
Collaborative instore curation and region content and licencing across 422 stores — US, Europe, Asia
HERMÈS · PUIFORCAT · LAURA MERCIER · ROYAL SALUTE
Event playlist curation
O2
Music audit across brand, stores and partnership teams resulting in-store strategy and curation
APEROL · H&M · ALL SAINTS
Cultural programming, live artists and DJs
KFC
Sound of British Hip Hop — emerging artist campaign playlist and instore music curation.
FORMULA 1 · POST OFFICE
Music supervision and licensing
MATTHEW HAYMAN
MUSIC STRATEGIST · CULTURAL PROGRAMMER · BRAND CONSULTANT
MUSIC ADVISOR / CONSULTANT · PLAYLIST CURATOR · DJ
There is a moment when the music is exactly right - when sound stops being background and becomes part of the brand experience.
Matthew has spent twenty years asking what that moment costs when it is missing and building the methodology to answer it commercially.
The career began in live music curating events for Converse, Lynx, Ford and Xbox alongside artists including Rudimental, Stereophonics, DJ Fresh and Hurts. From there, national DJ programmes for All Saints, H&M, Topshop and New Look. Then Music Concierge, PlayNetwork and a direct partnership with Apple Music, designing and implementing music strategies for some of the most considered global brands in luxury hospitality and retailers.
That work spans Apple Music, Burberry, The Estée Lauder Group (Aveda, Jo Malone, Tom Ford), Harrods, Tommy Hilfiger, KFC, Rhubarb Hospitality, D&D London, Park Hyatt, COMO Hotels, Dishoom, Hilton, Corinthia Hotels, The Wolseley and Studio City Macau.
Alongside that, a long-running presence on the London hospitality scene as a resident DJ at The Arts Club Mayfair, The Dorchester, The Savoy, Groucho Club, Quaglino's, Somerset House and Bluebird Café.
Across global music providers, licensing and brand strategy, he has sat on every side of the conversation: what the providers are selling, what the research actually says, what brands are getting and what they are not. That position held by almost no one else in this space — is what makes Outsound different.
START THE CONVERSATION
Working directly with brands and alongside the agencies, consultancies and creative studios building their world — as a specialist layer inside your process, not an addition to your client’s budget.
outsound.co · London · 2026